2014-04-21

ICANN's new gTLD domain names: Innovation OR Hokum by Hucksters?

Domain Shane: "I’m going to have to admit it. Many of the articles on the domaining feed are down right unreadable. We all pump. We get paid to pump. But due to the sheer number of new gTLDs coming out there is a much bigger need for pumping. The competitiveness had [sic] also turned things ugly as readers and customers are getting tired of the articles and even the registries and their approaches. It’s even worse in the domain conference world...."

Frank Schilling explains ICANN's new gTLDs in the video above--beware story-tellers with products for sale--ICANN's new gTLDs:we are only limited by our imaginations! (Plus $185,000 up front to ICANN plus renewal fees.) "Narrative makes for a compelling story. It appeals to us emotionally. It often falls apart when scrutinized" (source infra).

"Late last year, we had a wholesaler from a major exchange-traded-fund firm visit our office. At the time, the chatter was all about the planned Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. initial public offering. It was going to be, in his words, “huge, disruptive, incredibly powerful"... Never mind that IPO returns are on average mediocre or worse ...This guy had a great story to tell, and to the uninitiated, it was enthralling. The story, as it turns out, was and is completely and utterly wrong. The narrative, as is so often the case, failed. But not its appeal to our deep lizard brains...In politics, when your narrative fails, the other guy wins. With investing, following narratives leads to lost capital..." -- Barry Ritholtz, The Alibaba Story-Telling Failure - Bloomberg View